Tech Tips

4 Ways To Detect and Avoid Digital Threats

10.09.2017

There is no way to continuously scan for every kind of digital threat. With hackers continuously evolving, staying on top of the current vulnerabilities is a challenge. All too often organizations focus on the most common types of threats. Having a tunnel like vision on the common threats, or threats of the moment, will leave you open to other types of attacks. So… how do you protect your business from attacks without driving yourself crazy?

1. Scan for Threats Early and Often

We say this all the time, “Do not ignore your anti-virus updates!” We know that they pop up frequently but that’s because threats are evolving frequently. Keep your scanning software up to date so it can effectively find new threats. For applications and software that your organization are developing, be sure to scan as early as possible in the software development lifecycle in order to increase overall security while also reducing remediation costs.

2. Make Sure Your Reports Are Accessible and Actionable

Simply having the software scan, does not mean your risks are mitigated. Your reports need to be in a form that can be easily acted upon by both the security and operations teams. It must include details such as the severity level and age of the vulnerability, and the information also needs to be actionable. This requires creating a fast, automated and repeatable process connecting the risk to the solution.

3. Determining How To Respond

If someone shouts “fire” you need more information before you can know whether you should run toward the fire to help or run away from the fire to protect yourself, or whether you should call the fire department or grab an extinguisher.

Where’s the fire? How big is it? How quickly is it spreading? Is anyone in danger or hurt?

The same is true for security risks. Just knowing the risk, severity, and age is not enough. You have to ask further questions to know how to respond and resolve the issue.

Things you should ask:

What assets are affected?

What network is it on?

Has this happened to other organizations?

Is consumer information compromised?

4. Study up!

As your organization continues to respond to different vulnerabilities, take notes. Learn from the different risks and your response so you can better respond to future attacks. It also helps to talk with other organizations and industry professionals to stay up to date on current IT threats and response tactics.